Appliances such as refrigerator appliances and oven appliances generally include one or more shelves or racks for supporting food items, containers, and/or cooking utensils. For example, oven appliances conventionally include one or more racks whereon multiple food items can be supported within the oven appliance during operation of the oven appliance. In order to accommodate food items and cooking utensils of different sizes, certain oven appliances include horizontal protrusions formed on side walls of the oven appliance's chamber. Racks can slide into and out of the oven appliance's chamber on such horizontal protrusions. In particular, the racks and protrusions are designed so that a user can remove a rack from protrusions at one vertical level and reinstall the rack at a different vertical level, which the user may select based on e.g., the height of the food items or utensils, the number of items being cooked, the type of food being cooked, and/or other factors. Similarly, certain refrigerator appliances have shelves that e.g., include tabs or hooks at a rear of the shelves. Such shelves can be unhooked and moved to various vertical locations.
However, such conventional designs can present challenges to appliance users. For example, certain user may find removal and reinstallation of the rack or shelf at various vertical heights cumbersome or difficult. Additionally, in certain oven appliances, the protrusions are formed by stamping metal sheets to form side walls of the oven appliance's chamber. Due to such construction, the number of vertical levels can be limited to e.g., only four or five within the oven appliance's chamber. Thus, the amount of vertical adjustability can be quite limited and, therefore, unsatisfactory to some users. Similar problems can exist with shelving systems in refrigerator appliances.
Other systems have been proposed to provide vertical adjustability for the racks or shelves within an appliance. Typically, however, such constructions are also limited to fixed number of a relatively few locations at which the racks or shelves can be placed within the appliance. Some constructions may also be limited in the amount of weight that can be supported.
Accordingly, an appliance having vertically adjustable racks or shelves would be useful. An appliance also having features that allow for an increased selection of vertical locations to which the racks or shelves can be adjusted would also be useful. Further, an appliance having features that allow for quick and easy adjustment of the racks or shelves to the various vertical locations would be useful.